Saturday, October 29, 2016

From Times of Israel, October 25, 2016, by David Horovitz:Netanyahu always claims Palestinian opposition to Jewish sovereignty anywhere, not just to occupation and settlements, lies at the root of the conflict. The PA’s new battle against a century-old British declaration sadly proves his point

The Balfour Declaration

(Wikipedia)

Hidden away at the British Library — available for viewing only by special permission — is the original Balfour Declaration, foreign secretary Arthur James Balfour’s short but oh-so-resonant century-old letter of British government intent to revive Jewish sovereignty in the Holy Land. Also preserved, in an elegant folders kept under lock and key, is an earlier draft of the Declaration, a version that was circulated to various officials for their responses and possible amendments before the final text was issued on November 2, 1917.

Even after deciding on the legitimacy of the Zionist cause — and assessing its potential advantage to British interests — the Brits, as the various drafts of the Declaration make plain, recognized the spectacular sensitivities and potential repercussions of the decision to “view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”

From the get-go, the British sought to square the circle — to restore Jewish statehood in the only place on earth where the Jewish people had ever been sovereign, but to do so while preserving the rights of the other communities living in the Holy Land. That effort to realize Jewish sovereign rights while also legitimizing the claims of the Arab peoples here was maintained when Britain ended its mandate and the UN in 1947 recommended partition — a revived Jewish state alongside a first-ever Palestinian state.

The Arab world opposed the Balfour Declaration from day one, opposed the UN partition plan, and sought to destroy the State of Israel in 1948. And on Monday, even though the Palestine Liberation Organization ostensibly came to terms with pre-1967 Israel when Yasser Arafat entered the ill-fated Oslo process with Yitzhak Rabin a quarter-century ago, a senior member of that same PLO proclaimed the Balfour Declaration to be a criminal “colonialist project” and formally launched what he promised will be a year-long campaign designed “to remind the world and particularly Britain that they should face their historic responsibility and to atone for the big crime Britain committed against the Palestinian people.”

A few months ago, the Palestinian Authority revealed it was also preparing a lawsuit against the British government over the Balfour Declaration, with the PA’s Foreign Minister Riyad al-Malki holding London responsible for all “Israeli crimes” committed since the end of the British mandate. It was Britain that had committed the original sin of paving the way for Israel’s establishment, because the Balfour Declaration, said Malki, “gave people who don’t belong there something that wasn’t theirs.”

Polished Palestinian Authority politicians and spokespeople would have the world believe that their objections to Israel are centered on the occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and on the settlement enterprise — and that what they seek is an independent Palestine alongside Israel, not in place of it.

The Palestinians’ new campaign to highlight the ostensible illegalities and iniquities of the Balfour Declaration tells a different story. It shows an undimmed hostility to the very notion of Jewish sovereignty anywhere in the holy land, and an abiding refusal to accept Jewish legitimacy here.

The 1917 Declaration pledged to safeguard the rights of others even as it sought to realize the rights of the Jews. So, too, the UN vote on partition in 1947. And yet here we still are, a century later, with the Palestinian leadership branding as a “crime” the start of a process that, had they accepted it, would long since have given them statehood. For the Palestinian leadership, in 2016, we Jews remain people who don’t belong there, who got something that wasn’t theirs.

This is not Hamas talking, not a terrorist organization avowedly committed to destroying all vestiges of Israel. This is the supposed moderate, mainstream Palestinian leadership. The relative good guys. The hierarchy regarded internationally as responsible. The leadership with which Israel has negotiated and would negotiate.

Unfortunately, there should be no great surprise about this. The same purportedly responsible Palestinian leadership, while claiming to seek a two-state solution, is relentlessly pushing resolutions through UNESCO that rewrite history to sever Judaism (and Christianity) from its holiest places in Jerusalem, and thus to discredit Jewish sovereign legitimacy. Pathetically, most UNESCO nations are abetting the farce, either failing to oppose or actually voting in support of the Palestinian mockery of historical fact. With their pusillanimous votes, these nations are thus encouraging the Palestinian intolerance of Jewish legitimacy, and, by extension, tacitly countenancing Palestinian violence against the ostensibly unrooted Jewish state.

The same purportedly responsible Palestinian leadership, it might also be recalled, chose not to accept prime minister Ehud Olmert’s 2008 peace offer, which again would have given the Palestinians the viable, contiguous independent state alongside Israel that they assure the international community is all they seek.

And the same purportedly responsible Palestinian leadership tirelessly uses its TV, print media and social media to incite violence against Israel and assert the illegitimacy of sovereign Israel.

...when Netanyahu tells Israelis and the international community that the root cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not the settlement enterprise, as the Palestinians claim, but rather the perpetual refusal of the Palestinian leadership and populace to internalize the Jewish people’s right to sovereignty anywhere in the holy land, the Palestinians themselves provide ongoing confirmation.

The Balfour Declaration sought to restore a Jewish homeland while respecting the interests of the non-Jews who share this land. Thirty years later, the UN set out a specific framework for achieving this. This was not acceptable to the Arabs of Palestine and those who spoke for them at the time, since their desire for a first-ever Palestinian state was outweighed by their hostility to the notion of a revived Jewish state alongside them. And it is all too evidently not acceptable to the Palestinian leadership now.

In declaring diplomatic and legal war on the Balfour Declaration, Palestinian leaders are telling the world — to their and our enduring misfortune — that nothing has changed in 100 years, that their opposition to our state in any borders remains greater than their desire for their own independent entity. A century later, they are affirming that their refusal to share any part of this land with the Jewish people remains absolute.

Jeremy Corbyn accepted a free trip to meet President Assad of Syria funded by the Palestinian lobbyists who organised an event this week at which Jews were blamed for the Holocaust.

The Labour leader was taking part in a stunt to mark Balfour day, the anniversary of the signing of a British declaration in 1917 supporting a Jewish home in Palestine.

Mr Corbyn’s hosts were the British-based Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), a campaign group which four days ago organised a ["Balfour Day"]* House of Lords event demanding that Britain should apologise for Arthur Balfour’s pledge.Baroness Tonge, who chaired the meeting, resigned from the Liberal Democrats after an outcry over anti-semitic remarks made by audience members....Lady Tonge accompanied Mr Corbyn on the PRC trip to Syria in 2009. Mr Corbyn used the visit to allege that “once again the Israeli tail wags the US dog”, an allegation popular with conspiracy theorists and antisemites.Mr Corbyn was condemned yesterday by an expert on antisemitism for using “dangerous language”. The PRC has a record of hosting events featuring hard line anti-Israel speakers, where incendiary remarks are made about Jews...

Israel has claimed that the organisation is affiliated to Hamas, a designated terrorist group...

Mr Corbyn recorded the trip in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests as being worth £1,300. He stated that the purpose was to visit refugee camps. The delegation of international parliamentarians was headed by the Conservative Lord Sheikh.

...Mr Corbyn wrote about the trip in the communist Morning Star newspaper. He said he had met a group of Palestinians on the anniversary of the date “when Arthur Balfour gave his infamous declaration of support for a Jewish state of Israel”. It seemed appropriate, he argued, that the Palestinians experienced another big disappointment that day in news from Washington.

“Once again the Israeli tail wags the US dog as [secretary of state] Hillary Clinton drops demands to even halt new settlements as the Netanyahu government pushes to continue its dismemberment of the West Bank,” he wrote.

Dave Rich, author of The Left’s Jewish Problem, told The Times yesterday: “This crass wording about Israel echoes conspiratorial ideas about Jews or Zionists controlling US foreign policy. Somebody who claims to oppose antisemitism should be able to recognise the dangers of using language like this.”

...After becoming Labour leader last year, Mr Corbyn fuelled divisions in his parliamentary party by doggedly opposing the bombing of Islamic State targets in Syria.

The PRC has a track record of provocative events.

Sir Gerald Kaufman, the veteran Labour MP, told one of the group’s gatherings in Parliament last year that “Jewish money” was influencing the Tories.

...Speakers at an event it organised in 2013 included Mr Corbyn and the Rev Stephen Sizer, a Church of England clergyman who later posted a link on Facebook suggesting Israel was behind the 9/11 attacks....

*Balfour Day, when the historic declaration is denounced, was marked by Nazi supporters in 1943 in Berlin, where the grand mufti of Jerusalem gave a speech venting his hatred of the Jews as well as the British for helping Zionists....

There is nothing stable in the Middle East, nothing to hang on to, nothing to give up anything for.

Dr. Mordechai Kedar

..."The Middle Eastern see-saw is leaning heavily towards the Saudi-Egyptian axis, but it is not at all clear whether that coalition will continue to direct the Middle East in another year or two. Israel must not be tempted to align its security and future with a temporary constellation, no matter how good it appears to be. Israel must always base its policy on long term planning that gives priority to Israel and its territorial possessions and not to agreements resting on the shifting sands of the Middle East."

Unfortunately, for the last two years Israelis and many others have been talking about the importance of a treaty between Israel and the so-called "coalition of moderate Sunni nations" - to wit, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, The United Arab Emirates, and the Palestinian Authority - all of them united against the Iranian threat and ISIS which threaten the stability and welfare of their regimes. There are even those who accuse Israel's government of not being wise enough to make use of the present situation in the Middle East to forge a peace agreement with the Arab and Islamic world on the basis of the Saudi Peace Plan adopted by the Arab League.

The foundation of the "moderate Sunni coalition" was the close cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, that began when King Abdullah, all heart and outspread hands, supported General Sisi, who in July 2013 ousted elected president Mohammed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, this in sharp contrast to the will of the US government and Europe. The Saudi billions saved Egypt from bankruptcy, and the cooperation between the two countries reached the point where Egyptian soldiers came to the aid of the Saudis in their struggle against the Iranian and Houthi forces in Yemen.Except that since then, the sand dunes on which the aforementioned "coalition" was built have shifted in the wake of the north winds coming from the battlegrounds of Syria, putting paid to the bets on what seemed like a winning hand just a short while ago.Today the relations between Egypt and the Saudis are a far cry from cooperation and Egypt is now in close cahoots with Saudi Arabia's enemies, headed by Iran.

How did the turnabout happen?

The answer is clearly to be found in the situation in Syria for the past two years, especially Russia's involvement, the Aleppo campaign and the resolutions concerning Syria passed by the UN Security Council, of which Egypt is a member this year. The Assad issue polarizes all the countries involved in Syria: Russia, Iran, Iraq and Hezbollah support Assad actively, not only politically, and are taking part in the fighting. Assad would be long gone without this involvement. On the other side of the court, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and some of the Emirates are undermining Assad politically and financially, arming and training those rebelling against his regime.

The scales of war tipped towards Assad during the past year once Russian military involvement began to increase in strength. One can say with certainty that Russia has become the Syrian Army's main source of power, mainly from the air, and that a good part of the Russian navy, armed with rockets and aircraft carriers, is concentrated opposite Syria's shores. The air defense systems that Russia has spread along the Syrian coast threaten the activities of the US, Israeli and Turkish warplanes in the area.

Russia acts without legal or moral constraints, and bombs civilian neighborhoods mercilessly, forcing their citizens to become human shields for the rebels - those that Saudi Arabia supports, mostly in the eastern quarters of Aleppo.

In the political arena, Russia managed to force Erdogan to stop helping the rebels and concentrate instead on preventing Syria's Kurds from establishing an independent state that might threaten Turkish stability. Sisi has been faced with the dilemma of whom to support from the first day of his regime in July 2013 - wondering whether he should stand behind Assad or behind Assad's Islamist enemies, the ideological brothers of Sisi's own opponents in the Sinai and along the length of the Nile.

While Sisi was politically and financially dependent on the Saudis, he abstained from supporting Assad publicly, but the direct and massive Russian intervention in Syria made him rethink what policy it would be best to pursue. He realized that Assad might succeed in overcoming his opponents and that the Saudi regime might fail in its war against the Syrian dictator, so he decided to bet on the winning horse. He abandoned the Saudis, crossed the lines, and now feels that Assad can remain in power no matter what future agreement lies ahead. The US decision to stay out of the fray also helped convince Sisi that the power in the Middle East is in the hands of Russia and its Iranian allies, making it worth his while to join the winning team and abandon the losers.

The October 8th vote in the Security Council saw the Egyptian delegate take a stand supporting Russia's suggested resolution and not that of the Saudis. In response, Saudi Arabia's UN delegate said that Egypt's support of Russia is a "sad thing" and the Saudis promptly stopped an oil shipment headed for Egypt and placed restrictions on Egypt Airlines flights to Saudi Arabia.

Egypt's police removed the concrete barriers that protected the Saudi Embassy in Cairo, claiming that a traffic tunnel is being constructed exactly at that spot, and the Saudi ambassador got the hint, leaving Cairo and returning to his homeland. Sisi, at a military ceremony, announced that "Egypt bows only to Allah," meaning to no man or other country, alluding to the Saudi regime. The media received reports that a former senior Egyptian officer sold patrol boats to the Houthis in Yemen, the tribes that Iran supports and Saudi Arabia is trying to destroy.

And all this deterioration in the relations between the two countries occurred over 5 days, from the 8th to the 13th of October.Meanwhile, the relations between Russia and Egypt have become stronger over the last year and the cooperation between Putin and Sisi has extended to the military sphere, much to the chagrin of the Saudis. Egypt is purchasing Russian arms, taking part in joint maneuvers with the Russian army and Russia is helping Egypt build a nuclear power plant.

The Palestinian AuthorityThe Palestinian Authority (PA) had also joined the list of the "moderate Sunni coalition" with which Israel was supposed to reach a peace agreement, according to the pundits. Except that it turns out that this very same PA rests on shaky legs at best.

For the past decade, we have been accustomed to a political and territorial split in the Palestinian Arab sector, with Gaza a Hamas state and Judea and Samaria's Arabs in love with the PLO.

All that was until last month, when the PLO dream was shown to be totally divorced from reality, as the organization itself split between Abbas supporters and those who support Mohammed Dahlan, corresponding to a growing schism between urban Arabs and refugee camp dwellers.

Throughout the past year, and particularly last month, there were violent outbursts between civilians and PA security forces in which the Palestinian police behavior towards these civilians was on a level of cruelty and violence equal to that which was prevalent in the Arab world for many years until the "Arab Spring" broke down the cruelty barrier. The reason is obvious: The security organizations are filled with personnel brought from Tunisia, not native Palestinian Arabs, and are therefore not considered legitimate by local residents.

What is going on today in the PA can be considered preparation by public and political institutions for the day after Abbas: Hamas is getting stronger, accruing arms and planning a takeover of Judea and Samaria. The fear of Hamas on the part of PLO supporters is behind their search for a young, energetic and proven rival to Hamas. Mohammed Dahlan suits the bill almost perfectly, but is strongly opposed by Abbas and his cohorts.Is the PLO going to remain a united organization in the future? It is hard to predict, but Middle Eastern dynamics perpetuate controversies and deepen them, so it is quite possible that this internecine war will destroy the PLO just as its struggle with Hamas destroyed the dream of one Palestinian State even before its birth.

Developments within the PLO prove once again that the only possible solution regarding the Arabs living in Judea and Samaria is the Emirate solution advocating the establishment of Emirates in the cities of Judea and Samaria ruled by local hamoulot (clans). In order to create them, the PA must be allowed to fall apart so that seven Emirates can be built on its ruins: Jenin, Shechem (Nablus), Tulkerem, Qalqilya, Ramallah, Jericho and Arab-populated Hevron.

The hamoula, which some call a clan and others a tribe, is a stable entity, the only solid and dependable one in the sociological reality of the Middle East, the only one which can support a legitimate and stable political body for many years. Western-style states, established on the shifting sands of dreams that drift with the blowing winds, bring destruction on their people. Just look at Syria, Libya, Iraq, Yemen.Middle East coalitions are also built on shifting sand dunes, and once again I warn those who make the decisions in Israel and outside it to steer clear of a love affair with the present-day stars in the constellation, from basing any long term policy on Middle East "coalitions" and especially from paying in hard currency - such as land - for a piece of paper just because the word "peace" is written on it.One example: Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan since 1994. That does not prevent this artificial state, which did not even exist before 1921, from advancing the UNESCO decision that negates the 3000 year old connection between the Jewish People and Jerusalem. Is that what one calls peace? Did Israel call the Jordanian ambassador to order and complain about his country's behavior in UNESCO? Is this the kind of "coalition" to which Israel can belong?

After being buried in a Jewish cemetery in Nazi-occupied Hungary, a family Torah is about to complete a remarkable journey to Sydney.

The Central Synagogue, at Bondi Junction, in Sydney’s east, will soon receive its first pre-­Holocaust Torah, the final leg of a journey managed by property ­developer Danny Avidan.
The Torah will be flown from Israel to Sydney by his sister, Dorit Avidan Eldar, and her husband, leading Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar.
Before it is taken on to the plane it will have been carefully wrapped under the guidance of a rabbi.

In 1934 in Budapest, Mr ­Avidan’s grandfather, Haim Yacov Meir Bialazurker, was given a Torah by his 10 children to mark his 60th birthday.But in 1944, amid the chaos of the Nazi invasion of Hungary, someone, without the family’s knowledge, buried the Torah in a Jewish cemetery in the hope it would survive.

As the war was ending, a man disguised as a Nazi soldier knocked on the family’s door — he had brought back the Torah, hidden in a potato sack.

Today, Yacov’s youngest daughter Susan lives in Sydney and is about to turn 90.

To mark her birthday, Mr Avidan — her son — will present the Torah to her at the synagogue on November 7.

Asked if she thought the Torah would survive the war, Mrs Avidan said: “We didn’t even think that we would survive.”

After the war, the Torah was taken to Israel, but it deteriorated to the point where it was no longer considered Kosher — which meant it could not be read from in a synagogue.

With the aim of presenting it to his mother, Mr Avidan had it ­restored, letter by letter, over many months. The Torah, which contains the five Books of Moses, is considered the central document of Judaism.

Mr Avidan began the project after reading a book by Susan J. Gordon, called Because of Eva: A Jewish Genealogical Journey, published in 2016bySyracuseUniversity Press, about his grandfather and the Torah.

“I had to find out more and I had to see that Torah,” Mr Avidan said. “I followed my feelings, went to Israel and found it.”He said that for his family, who came to Australia in the 1960s with little family and money, bringing the Torah was “a way of bringing and planting our heritage in our country, Australia”.“Having my mother still with us to be able to embrace that, and feel the satisfaction of knowing that for me, my children and great-grandchildren in years to come will always know the story of where we came from — and the Torah will be our family root, our family tree, and hopefully keep us practising Judaism in the manner that my grandfather did and the manner that we try to do, and hopefully future generations in our family will do,” he said.“In 1944 people were worried about surviving, eating, and my grandfather was very active with the Wallenberg movement and the whole Swedish movement in saving his family’s lives and as many people’s lives as possible by handing out Swedish papers.“I don’t think the Torah was a concern. As the war was ending in Hungary, a person disguised as a Nazi brought him the Torah and, as far as I understood it, my grandfather was overwhelmed that the horror, the dark night of the last couple of years, had come to an end.“He died a couple of days later.”

The Chief Rabbi of the Central Synagogue, Levi Wolff, said even if one letter of a Torah was cracked it was deemed not to be Kosher.

Asked how he saw this story at a human level, Rabbi Wolff said: “At first glance, it may seem like a stretch to find common ground between Danny’s Hungarian grandfather, his mother who resided in Israel and his Aussie children,” he said.“Different language, different culinary tastes and vastly different recreational activities and sporting teams.“Yet it is a microcosm of the Jewish experience ... Often, by necessity, we’ve been scattered and nomadic. At its core, our unity is based on one truth: the Torah. The values and moral compass found within teach us life lessons that are lovingly passed down from generation to generation.”

The upshot of their debate:
Apply Obama’s first rule of governance. “Don’t do stupid things.” It is wiser
for Israel to defer action than to take steps that threaten to make a bad
situation worse. Conflict management is currently the least-worst option

With Barack Obama’s term as
president of the US coming to an end, and Mahmoud Abbas’ tenure as Palestinian
leader winding down too, the Israeli government will soon have an opportunity
to recalibrate its diplomatic policies. Israeli policy on the Palestinian issue
has been ham-fistedly frozen for two decades.

But in which direction should
Israel go? Fortify or vitiate the Fatah-led dictatorship in Ramallah? Redeploy
from parts of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), or re-assert Israel’s
sovereign presence in major parts of Judea and Samaria through renewed
building?

Do withdrawals toward the
coastal plain offer a saner and safer future for Israel; or is building a
united and “greater” Jerusalem from Jericho to Jaffa the DNA that holds the key
to the future of Israel and Zionism – as General Gershon Hacohen argues?

Muddle through, or attempt a
radical paradigm shift?

These questions have been
argued out in recent months in the seminar rooms and on the website of the
Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies by center associates, including Maj.
Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yaakov Amidror (the Rosshandler
senior fellow at the center, and a former national security advisor to the
Prime Minister), Col. (res.) Dr. Eran Lerman (a former deputy national security
advisor), and professors Hillel Frisch (an Arabist), Efraim Inbar (a
strategist), and Max Singer (a defense expert).

The upshot of their debate:
Apply Obama’s first rule of governance. “Don’t do stupid things.” It is wiser
for Israel to defer action than to take steps that threaten to make a bad
situation worse.

***

Frisch mapped out five
possible Israeli approaches:

caretaker conflict management,

creative friction,

constructive chaos,

unilateral withdrawal, and

unilateral annexation.

The
caretaker option is probably the most feasible, he feels; unilateral withdrawal
is the least; and none of the options is ideal. In every case, Israel will have
to maintain a significant military presence in Judea and Samaria.

Frisch completely dismisses a
sixth option: Rapid establishment of a full-fledged Palestinian state. Neither
he nor his colleagues view this as feasible or advisable in the foreseeable
future.

Inbar says that

“Israelis
have gradually come to realize that at present the Palestinians are neither a
partner for comprehensive peace nor capable of establishing a viable state,
unfortunately. The Palestinian Authority has no intention of accepting a Jewish
state in any borders, and the two sides remain far apart on most of the
concrete issues to be resolved.”

“Israel’s recent governments
are left, willy-nilly, with a de facto conflict-management approach, without
foreclosing any options. While there are costs to this wait-and-see approach,
let’s remember this was the approach favored by David Ben-Gurion. He believed
in buying time to build a stronger state and in hanging on until opponents
yield their radical goals or circumstances change for the better.”

Amidror too dislikes the
drive for unilateral Israeli initiatives.

“A partial withdrawal would likely
increase, rather than decrease, Palestinian terrorism, as Palestinians would be
motivated to push harder for total Israeli withdrawal. On the other hand,
Israeli annexation would inflame Palestinian passions and engender severe
opposition to Israel abroad.”

“This is not the time to
embark on useless experiments or risky unilateral initiatives, either in the
hope of preparing the ground for an eventual Palestinian state or in the hope
of thwarting it. When standing on the edge of a cliff, it is wiser to keep
still than to step forward,” Amidror concludes.

Lerman agrees, noting that
many factors bind both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Opposition Leader Herzog to
their current position of genuine but hung support for the two-state rubric.
This includes the sensitivities of neighbors who matter (Jordan, Egypt, etc.),
the views of Diaspora Jewry and of Western diplomatic allies, and defense
establishment preferences for the status quo.

But Lerman also warns that
the false Palestinian narrative of one-sided victimhood is a major hindrance to
all peace efforts.

“Global actors that want to help achieve peace need to
assist the Palestinians in moving beyond wallowing in self-pity and rituals of
bashing Israel...“The concept of painful but
practical compromises seems alien to the Palestinians, and the international
community is not doing its part to help the Palestinians mature towards this
realization.”

Along these lines, Singer
says that Washington and Brussels must robustly make clear their distaste for
Palestinian denial of the Jewish People’s connection to the land of Israel and
Jerusalem. They should modify their aid programs to reduce Palestinian use of
foreign money to support terror; determinedly defend free speech in Palestinian
society; and act to resettle Palestinian refugees outside of Israel.

Singer also feels that Israel
should improve its public diplomacy “by moving from appeasement to
truth-telling.” Specifically, Israel should formally adopt the report of Israel
Supreme Court Justice Edmond Levy to challenge the myth that Israel has stolen
Palestinian land.

“Even opponents of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and
supporters of a two-state solution should support Levy’s affirmation of
Israel’s historic and settlement rights in the territories. This is critical in
leveling the diplomatic playing field. Israel must not go into future
negotiations as a guilty party.”

General Hacohen goes beyond
his BESA Center colleagues. To him, caretaking and truth-telling are
insufficient. He believes in Israeli activism that forces the adversary onto
the defensive and creates advantageous new situations. This means maneuvering
and expanding in Jerusalem and the Judean/Samarian heartland.

“Settlements are
forward outposts of Zionism, in addition to their being critical to Israel’s
military deployment in the territories. Where there is a farmer on his land,”
he says, “the army has the strength to rule.”

Monday, October 24, 2016

On 27th September 2016, Rabbi Sacks delivered a keynote address entitled 'The Mutating Virus: Understanding Antisemitism' in the European Parliament. The speech opened a conference on the future of Jewish communities in Europe hosted by Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament.

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